Sell your house fast in Sunnyside, Queens.

Sunnyside is the neighborhood in western Queens between Long Island City and Woodside, with the 7 train on Queens Boulevard through the middle, the Sunnyside rail yards and the Long Island Expressway on the south, and Skillman Avenue and the Gardens on the north. It was built between 1910 and 1935, six family brick walkups along the boulevard and the streets by the train, two and three family brick and frame houses south toward Greenpoint Avenue, and the Gardens, the planned community of brick rows around shared courtyards built in the 1920s and landmarked in 2007. It was Irish for most of a century and is Irish, Turkish, Colombian, Nepali and Filipino now, with renters from Manhattan who came for the twelve minute ride to Grand Central and never left. A house here is worth a great deal and almost always comes with tenants, a rent stabilized building next door, and in the Gardens a landmark commission that has an opinion about the windows.

The typical home value in Sunnyside is around $1,250,000, up roughly 5.2% over the past year, with houses averaging about 50 days on the market.

The Gardens row your grandparents bought in 1951 and the Landmarks file

The most common Sunnyside call is a Gardens row, bought in the 1950s by an Irish family when the Gardens were still a cooperative in spirit, held for seventy years, and never renovated. A 1951 kitchen, a slate roof with pieces missing, windows replaced in 1988 with the wrong ones, a brick front that needs pointing, a cellar with a boiler from 1990, and three generations inside. The heirs are in Bayside, in Rockland and in Ireland. The Landmarks Preservation Commission requires approval for the windows, the roof and the front, and a violation from the 1988 windows is sometimes already on the file. We buy the row as it stands, with the Landmarks file open, and the heirs sign where they live.

The two family south of the boulevard with a cellar tenant and a Housing Court case

The two and three families on the streets between Queens Boulevard and Greenpoint Avenue were bought for the income, and the income has not kept up. A second floor tenant since 2008 at a 2014 rent, a cellar finished without a permit with a tenant in it, a top floor tenant who stopped paying after the pandemic, and a Queens Housing Court case adjourned since the spring. We buy occupied, on the rents actually arriving, with the case open, and the cellar priced as a cellar.

The six family by the 7 train and the stabilized rent roll

The walkups along 43rd, 46th and 48th Streets near the train are rent stabilized, built before 1974, with registrations that fell behind and rents set in the 1990s for tenants who have never left. A lender underwrites the loan on the rent roll and the roll will not carry it. We price the building on the rents as they are, the status of each unit and the registration history, and we buy it with the tenants in place and the Housing Preservation and Development file open.

The lot the developers want near the yards

On the blocks toward Long Island City and the rail yards, along Skillman and Barnett Avenues and the streets in the 30s, a frame house on a 25 foot lot is worth more as a lot and the developers send letters. Their contracts carry ninety days of due diligence and a financing contingency. We price the lot the same way, on the zoning and the buildable square feet, and we close without a construction loan.

Where listing still wins in Sunnyside

A renovated Gardens row with Landmarks approved windows and no deadline should be listed, and we will say so, because Sunnyside buyers bid against each other for them. Where a cash sale wins is the row with the wrong windows and a Landmarks file, the estate with heirs in Ireland, the two family with a tenant in court and a cellar unit, the walkup whose rent roll will not carry a loan, or the lot the developers keep writing about.

What we buy in Sunnyside

Brick rows in Sunnyside Gardens, two to four families south of Queens Boulevard, six and eight family walkups, mixed use buildings on Queens Boulevard, Greenpoint Avenue and Skillman Avenue, houses on buildable lots near the yards, estates in any condition, buildings in foreclosure, and vacant lots. We do not buy cooperative or condominium apartments, including the Gardens co-ops. If you own something unusual, call anyway.

The Gardens, south of the boulevard, the train blocks and the yards

Sunnyside is four markets. The Gardens between Skillman and Barnett Avenues is landmarked brick rows priced on the block, the courtyard and the Landmarks file. South of Queens Boulevard toward Greenpoint Avenue, the two and three families are priced on the units and the rents. The walkups along 43rd, 46th and 48th Streets by the 7 train are priced on the stabilized rent roll. The blocks toward the yards and Long Island City are priced on the lot and the zoning. We build the offer from sales in your market, with the comparable addresses on the sheet, and we show you which one your building is in before we show you the number.

What the four share is the 1920s build. A Sunnyside house that was never renovated carries the same list: a slate or flat roof with layers, a brick front that needs pointing, knob and tube behind the plaster, galvanized pipes, a boiler from 1990, a cellar with a tenant, and in the Gardens the wrong windows. An inspector working for a bank writes the list and the bank waits. We write the same list as prices and close.

Landmarks, the 2007 designation and the windows from 1988

Sunnyside Gardens was designated a historic district in 2007, and everything visible from the street, windows, doors, roofs, fronts, fences, needs the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s approval to change. Work done before 2007 is grandfathered in theory and written up in practice when a survey finds it. A violation on the file stops a financed sale at the title search and clearing it means approved materials at approved prices. We buy with the file open, price the approved work as a line, and deal with the commission ourselves after closing.

Looking just beyond Sunnyside? You can also sell your house fast in Woodside NY or sell a house fast in Astoria NY, and you can read about how we buy houses in Maspeth NY.

Many Sunnyside homeowners also ask us how to sell a hoarder house, sell a house in foreclosure, or sell an inherited home.